My sister had the same thing happen with library books that got lost in a house fire. The library basically didn't give a shit, and made her pay for the full cost of the books.
As far as stupid rules and laws go, I remember my first year of college they had a list of rules of things explicitly forbidden from the dorm rooms. Typical stuff like drug paraphernalia and candles, but the last item was "no hot tubs". I was like, "Why are hot tubs, of all things, explicitly forbidden in a dorm room?" Apparently someone the year before me built a homemade hot tub in their dorm room, which of course broke, and flooded the floors below the room, so they made a note to add it to the student manual.
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